Place the onion, garlic, mushrooms and butter into the TMX bowl and cook for 3 minutes at 100 degrees, speed 4.

Place sausages in lightly greased varoma dish (ensure they are not covering all of the vents). I normally place 4 along the bottom and four on top of these facing the other direction.

Place vegies in varoma tray (once again check the vents).

Place the chopped potatoes into the rice basket.

Add stock, salt and pepper to the TMX bowl (I am generous with the pepper).

Place the rice basket into the TMX bowl and cook for 10 minutes at varoma temperature on speed 4.

Fit the varoma dish and tray onto the lid. Cook for 20 minutes at varoma temperature on speed 4.

Remove the varoma and rice basket (the sausages and vegies are ready to serve). Carefully remove the TMX lid (fat pools on the lid) and skim any fat from the top of the gravy mix inside the TMX bowl. There isn't generally too much fat if you use lean sausages.

If there is a build up of mushroom in the steamer basket scrape them into the TMX bowl. Add the cornflour and cook for 2 minutes at 100 degrees on speed 4 to thicken the gravy.

Notes:

If your sausages pop out of their skins, just pull the skins completely off before serving.

Variations:

Try filling the steamer basket with tiny scrubbed new potatoes. They steam really well and taste lovely with the sauce.

To make mash you need to remove the gravy and rinse the TMX bowl (don't fuss too much about it though). Check that the potatoes are cooked until almost falling apart. If they are not cooked enough add them into your bowl with some milk and cook a little longer. If they are fully cooked add your butterfly, potatoes, some milk and a dob of butter. Mix on speed 3 until they reach your desired consistency.

Steam homemade meatballs or small rissoles for an easy variation. Jamie Oliver makes quick meatballs by squeezing out blobs of meat from quality spiced sausages. He says life is too short to roll them into neat little balls and he likes them looking "rustic". I really love Jamie!

cathy79 : I tried using vegetable stock concentrate instead of beef stock - very bland! Will have to try with real beef stock instead, I'm sure that will make all the difference.CP: made this last night according to the recipe, but with a couple of swiss brown mushies added at the beginning as per the suggestion and using the beef stockCP: we had it again tonight but added 3 x Swiss Brown mushies - bellisimo!

Zan: Added a couple of mushrooms (just button ones as that's what I had) at the beginning and used half bisto (english gravy granules) and cornflour for the thickening as had just used vegie concentrate stockZan:First time we did this we used beef with tomato and basil ones (macro organic at woolworths) the second time the chicken ones - the first produced a much nicer gravy and were far more appealing - really looked fine, the chicken ones were a bit insipid looking. Though 2 mins in the fry pan afterwards would have browned them up fine.

Judy: I used Mild Beef Curry sausages from Foodland, 5 thick ones and we could only manage to eat 1 each. The reason I finally did this recipe was because I had 180g of leftover caramelised onion in the fridge that needed to be used. I sauteed the garlic, added 110g of the onions (froze the rest) and as I had forgotten to buy some mushrooms I added one of those tiny 3gm packets of dried which I had soaked, adding the soaking liquid in with the beef stock. The gravy was very tasty, made heaps so I have frozen what I didn't need to go with the 3 remaining sausages. Judy:This time I used a couple of swiss browns in the gravy along with 100g of my frozen caramelised onion and 1/4 tspn sambal oelek. The potatoes in the basket were covered in bits of mushroom from the steaming process so I rinsed them out under hot running water before mashing them with hot milk and butter - didn't want them looking too grey. It is such an easy meal to make and I really enjoy sausages cooked this way. A tasty gravy and good quality sausages is certainly the key to success here.Judy: Finally tried my suggestion of cooking this with the sausages in the steaming basket, diced potatoes, pumpkin and slices of carrot in the varoma dish and finely sliced cabbage on the varoma tray. I used beef chipolatas (10 of them). I followed the recipe but left the steaming basket with the sausages out, cooked the first stage (Gravy & vegies) for 15 minutes then added the basket with the sausages and cooked a further 15 minutes. The mashed potatoes were therefore nice and white and not grey from the mushroom gravy.

Kimberley:I didn't have beef stock so just used some chicken stock powder in water, and for the last 2 minutes added 1 tblspn of cornflour and 1 tbspn of gravy. It was a light coloured gravy but really yummy.

rainbow: I already had a mushroom sauce to serve so I proceed as follows:600g water in tmx bowl500g potatoes in basketSausage in varoma dishCook 20 mins varoma speed 4Add vegies to varoma tray and continue cooking another 10mins varoma speed 4everything cooked in that time so I simply emptied the bowl and added the potatoes with about 30g butter and some milkused the butterfly and mashed at speed 3 for approx 30 secs.Served with the Mushroom sauce and it went down well with the family, very easy meal.

KarenH: I added extra mushrooms (4 swiss browns) in with the onion and garlic at the first step, and so my potatoes were slightly brown/grey in colour, but were extra tasty. I also used gravox instead of flour, and it almost made the gravy too tasty (if there is such a thing!). I think the onion, garlic, beef stock and mushrooms were plenty of flavour without using the gravox - next time I will try with flour.

Kaily47:I could only get Chicken Sausages as all the others had additives so I made these changesI used Chicken Stock instead of Beef Stock, added an extra clove of garlic and onion.I diced the onion & garlic on Sp 5 for 3 sec firstI could get swiss mushrooms, so used button but added about 6I added 100g of butter instead of 50g as I had added so much extraI also used half sweet potato & half potato

I love sausages done in the varoma. Have been doing them way for ages. Started out when I converted my curried sausages recipe. This recipe is sure to be a HUGE hit in my family with all the males Thank you

We had this on Saturday night - beautifully steamed vegies and sausages, but need to work on the sauce, but that's my fault.

I tried using vegetable stock concentrate instead of beef stock - very bland! Will have to try with real beef stock instead, I'm sure that will make all the difference.Thanks for another great idea Chelsea.

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Thanks for trying it guys. I wouldn't recommend the sauce without some flavoursome beef stock - yeeeeek! It isn't a strong tasting gravy like gravox or maggi, but we love it when made with homemade beef stock (and there are no nasties).

Just another thought . If you want to make the sauce more flavoursome you could add a couple of swiss brown mushrooms to the onion and fry them both in the butter - yum! The potatoes may end up a bit flecked from the mushies, but they would be extra tasty too. Either way you would still need tasty beef stock though.

Also if you are happy to use gravox as the thickening agent that would also give the flavour a boost (as JD suggested).